Costume taken out of generational context
Listen, black people and white folks! I think we can all agree blackface is not funny. History tells us from 1830 to 1852 blackface was all the rage in this country and probably derived its name from the white performers who blackened their faces with burnt cork while whites masquerading as blacks performing songs, dances and dialect inspired by the blacks on southern plantations (some of you still speak that way).
Characters such as Jim Crow, who in the eyes of white people appeared as a naive, clumsy, idiot southern plantation slave who dressed in rags, represented to white people the idea of a typical black people. With names like Zip Coon or Dandy Jim, this medium enjoyed its greatest popularity (hilarious).
I am defending one of the students believed to be involved in the Halloween incident because dressing as Bob Marley (who was one shade away from being white himself) does not brand him a racist. I am suggesting the student’s use of a Halloween costume is best understood in the context of his generation. This same generation (Generation Y) seen as the ultimate rejection of the counterculture that embraces the hip-hop culture, Malibu’s Most Wanted, stealing music, stealing movies, broken English — the list goes on.
Let’s pull it together and look at this for what it really isn’t. The student was not mocking an insensitive satire (you should really take a look at the Obama bashers for that), nor was he behaving insensitively toward a people who clearly have deeper issues than this. It was Halloween and he was having fun.
— Lynette Clapp, Son went to high school with a student believed to be involved
in the Halloween blackface incident
Fist of all, "some of you still speak that way"? Oh my. Not a good start.
And why is it that those who do things that offend people get to decide whether or not the action was offensive? Is it not more important that many, many people were offended? No one is accusing the student involved of being a racist, it just seems that he made an unwise choice, has yet to take full responsibility for the hurt that that choice caused. Instead of defending the person who made the mistake, how about we look into the issues that this has brought up and try to find a solution for the obvious racial issues we have here at Northwestern.
If you came to the forum last thursday, then you would realize that no one is pointing any fingers at the young man. We as a community are looking into who was hurt, why, and how we can make sure that this does not happen again. It is intolerable. It is inexcusable. And you should not, and DO NOT get to whether or not an action is offensive or racist. That is not how this works.
Get a little information before you start making claims that don't make sense. It seems to me like a lot of the african american students who were upset by the incident were able to articulate their frustrations because they are educated about race issues. yeah, some of the non-minority students could do the same, but for the most part the ones voicing opinions seem to have no information whatsoever...which is why racial insensitivity is still an issue on this campus and in the world at large.take a class. read a book. stop defending ignorance and using freedom of expression as an excuse to do hurtful, insensitive things. We can be better than that.
The other person that said, how does this help the students involved? Well, the initial editorial pretty much is stating that the student in question did not act of malice or racial hatred - I pose the ask, how does this harm the students involved, other than the backlash? Black Americans are still underemployed, denied equal education, victims of police abuses of power and the prison industrial complex. How does what this kid has done make that worse? Racism is still alive in america, but by attacking people who did not perpetuate a true act of racism, it demeans those claims that are valid. The hostility over this kid's costume has done more to harm black civil rights than his costume ever could have done.
The other person that said,